I can not say that I subscribe to this particular theory because it seems to be too far-fetched. Yet, it has been proposed, and the idea of it is gaining greater amounts of attention. I decided to read more into the subject to see if their could be any levels of legitimacy to it.

One theory, superstition, or what have you, is that our solar system has another star within it. It supposedly exists at the edge of the solar system, somewhere within the allegedly surrounding Oort Cloud. This is the hypothetical region where comets, and other manners of celestial objects, exist in an extremely distant orbit of The Sun. It surrounds our solar system at a distance roughly 11.4 trillion miles, or roughly two light years, from The Sun.

The star has been named Nemesis. Astronomers have said that it could be a brown dwarf, a red dwarf, or a white dwarf. There have not been enough satellite images, or deep telescopic views (or deep space voyages…), to properly identify the star.

It’s existence would prove the theory that our solar system is a binary star system. It would add some legitimacy to the suggestions that some gravitationally-powerful body is out there, keeping The Kuiper Belt and The Oort Cloud in place as they exist at the furthest gravitational realms that belong to The Sun. As well, Nemesis being at the deepest regions of the solar system would add legitimacy to the theory of regularly occurring mass extinctions on Earth, happening roughly every thirty million years because of something to do with gravitational effects occurring between our planet, The Sun, and the outer star.

The possibility of Nemesis’ existence is proposed because of ideas about why comets orbit thoughout our solar system in the manners that they move. It is being suggested that The Oort Cloud is disturbed over reoccurring periods of thousands of years due to the gravity exerted by another star. The force causes chunks of matter within The Oort Cloud to break free, and to be sent hurtling randomly throughout the solar system. These comets are released over groups of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of years, where they are released to speed toward our inner planets.

Another suggestion being reviewed is that the star Nemesis randomly disturbs the orbit of the distant planetoid Sedna. This effect in turn sends gravitational waves that disrupt the orbital paths and settings of several bodies within the outer solar system. This allows things like rocks and comets within The Kuiper Belt to break free of their orbital bindings, and they then can go flying throughout the solar system, with any object that happens to be in the way thus serving as a target.

Again, all of this is deeply-edged theory. There is NO actual evidence that Nemesis is out there, as all of this is extremely high speculation. Keep in mind that the Voyager space probes have NOT reported (publicly) anything about a distant star that is a part of our solar system. No astronomers have told anything (or they have not been allowed to…) about another star that exists between our Sun and the Alpha Centauri system. All things seem to be too in check by the gravity exerted by every other known celestial body for anything like an entire star to be present at such a relatively close distance. Logic dictates that the idea of Nemesis is some level of urban legend.